2. ”What is Shintaido?”

“As a mood or feeling, Shintaido is more religious and artistic than scientific. It is more emotional and primitive than rational,” writes Shintaido’s founder, Hiroyuki Aoki. “It involves cooperation more than competition in its movements. But it is cooperation that emphasizes individual expression, rather than passive group enjoyment.… Shintaido cannot be understood by trying to pigeon-hole it into traditional or popular categories such as martial arts, gymnastics, health fads, or religion.”

The difficulty of creating an art that overcomes barriers to mutual understanding is something Aoki understands well. Shintaido grows from the soil of Japan’s ancient traditions, but it is not necessary to “turn Japanese” to master it.

A child of the 1960s, Shintaido speaks to an international audience and invites everyone to experience movement that is not “…constrained by tense shoulders, …[and] clenched fists, but rather one in which our hands and bodies are open to our partner and our neighbor in a gesture of respect, forgiveness and acceptance.” Thinking about body movement this way, it is easier to see how Shintaido, although born from the masters of the samurai tradition, may be closer in spirit to master artists such as Gauguin or William Blake.

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